Show and Tell
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Natasha is feeling pushed aside since the Avengers came together, but Clint's reasons for following Steve around aren't what she suspects.


Living at the Avengers Tower had been a lot less painful than Natasha had suspected it would be. When SHIELD had sent her and Clint to stay with the new team, she'd envisioned small explosions in the kitchen, daily bickering and arguing, and that she'd end up secluded to a small corner while trying not to kill each and every one of the residents. But truthfully, it wasn't that bad. The place had enough floors in the residential level that there was always a quiet spot to find, and since Thor didn't visit all that often there were very few fires in the kitchen.

Fury had been right, though. After the extensive news coverage of the Battle of New York, there was no physical way that the Black Widow and Hawkeye could continue as assassins and SHIELD agents in the field. Their faces had been featured worldwide, and it was a small SHIELD-secured miracle that they hadn't been targeted already. The only alternative was to sit behind a desk. Thus, Strike Team Delta had been officially disbanded and it's operatives were fused permanently to the newly approved Avengers Initiative as the team's SHIELD liaisons. She missed it. She missed the thrill of being in the field and the control of deciding when Clint's arrow would fly through her target's throat.

It was a small compensation that she was still on a team with him. But it didn't feel like it used to. The team was bigger than the two of them being partners - literally bigger, they were the shortest ones in the team. And, well, to put it simply - his company was becoming rare, and less involved. She felt pushed back, and if she'd been an emotional woman - she wasn't, she wasn't, she refused to be that woman - she felt abandoned by her partner. The group had seemingly partnered off: Bruce and Tony getting up to a great many experiments in the lab, and with Thor spending so much time between Asgard and wherever Jane was currently researching, that left Clint to follow Steve around like an adoring fan.

That left Natasha where she was now; on the roof level, curled up on the bench where Pepper had insisted that Tony grow some resemblance of a garden area considering how rare it was for them to leave the building without being accosted by press. It was a surprisingly warm autumn day, so she was taking advantage of the remains of summer to finish the book she'd started reading earlier that week. That was how she planned to spend her day, until the archer she was attempting to clear her mind of came out onto the patio area.

"Tasha. I've been looking for you everywhere."

She folded over the corner of her page and closed the book, looking up at him. "Why?"

"Training," he told her simply, tossing a pair of sparring gloves into her lap. She looked down at them, lifting her book out of their way, but didn't reach for them.

"I'm busy," she said, returning to her book and opening the page.

He frowned at her. "You're picking reading over getting your ass kicked?"

She snorted as she looked down at the pages. "Please, you couldn't kick me ass even if you were blindfolded."

He smirked at her. "Then prove it."

She glanced back up at him, her eyes narrowing a little at the challenge. "No."

He blinked. "No?"

"No. Go find someone else to spar with. You're usually within ten feet of Rogers, I'm sure he'll be happy to appease you again."

She hadn't planned on sounding so bitter, but it seemed to have worked. He pushed her feet up, sitting down on the far end of the bench. "Jealous, Nat?"

"No."

"Because you seem like you-"

"I'm not jealous of you and Spangles, Barton."

He fought back a smile. "Really, Spangles? Now you sound like a child."

She didn't dignify him with a glance, just muttered down at her book. "Feel free to leave at any time."

The hand on her knee stopped her. "Tasha, c'mon, don't be mad."

"I'm not mad."

His thumb moved a little, almost a stroking motion. Her eyes flickered to the movement and then back down at the page, though she hadn't read a word since he'd invaded her privacy.

"Nat, will you please talk to me?"

"I don't have much of a choice," she shrugs. "Since you keep disturbing my peace."

"Oh, peace is over-rated," he waved off. "Look, I know I've been spending a lot of time with Steve. This whole teamwork thing is new."

"And you're playing the part fantastically," she drawled.

"Which is exactly what Fury wants us to do," he reminded her, before sighing, running a hand over his face. "Look, Steve and I...we have...history," he told her.

This time she put the book down, raising an eyebrow. "You have history with a man who was frozen for seventy years?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "You could say that."

"And how, exactly, have you managed that?"

He debated the idea for a moment. "You can't tell Stark. He won't stop with the jokes."

"Please tell me you're not his long-lost grandson," she deadpanned.

He laughed at this, his hand slipping on her knee a little which caused him to readjust it. "No, we're not related. Not exactly. My uh...grandmother used to tell me stories about Cap, when I was kid. Before she moved away, before my Dad got...you know."

She knew. She knew all too well the horrors of Clint's father. "Your grandmother was a big fan, then?"

He gave her a smile. "My grandmother knew him."

That caused another raised eyebrow, to which he just responded with an amused grin. He shuffled closer along the bench, using her confusion over the subject as a distraction to pull her legs over his lap so he was essentially sat next to he, one arm slung around her shoulders as if they were hormone-ridden teenagers in a park.

"She was my mother's mother," he went on to explain, taking the book from her hands and putting it on his other side, well out of her reach, before setting his unused hand down on her knee again. "She was the only woman my father was ever afraid of," he gave an empty laugh at that. "He never laid a hand on us while she was in the country. When she moved back to England to see her other daughter, that's when he...ruined everything." The words were unspoken but she knew them well...when he hit Clint and Barney, when he half-killed their mother, when he drove them all into a tree and left the boys all alone. "Her name was Margaret Richardson, maiden name Carter."

"Margaret Carter..." she repeated quietly. "Peggy. Steve's Peggy?"

"The very same," he nodded, his hand snaking up from her knee to settle on her waist. "I've been helping them...reconnect. But it's not easy. I don't know if you've ever tried to show an old person how to use a computer, but two? It's a nightmare." She laughed at him this time, shaking her head but saying nothing. He leaned in, his nose brushing the end of hers. "You don't need to be jealous of Steve. You're still my favourite person, Tasha."

"I'm not jealous," she denied instantly.

He laughed softly, his breath against her lips until his own were against them. "Sure you weren't."

Her eyes flickered open, looking around them. "Not here."

He smirked in response, pulling Natasha into his lap fully, her legs on either side of his waist as he pressed his arms around her back, cementing them together. "Yes here," he told her.

"They'll be watching," she warned him.

"Then let's give them make them jealous," he said, before pulling her lips fully against his own.


End file.
